Coal Ash Countdown

Sometime this week, the EPA will issue regulations covering coal ash. They could go so far as to declare the leftover from burnt coal a "hazardous substance", though most folks involved do not expect that. The EPA has agreed to a December 19th deadline.

A week ago, 60-Minutes produced a report about coal ash that focuses mainly on a spill in North Carolina...you can watch it online HERE.

Last month I produced a more Alabama-focused report on the same issue. And you can watch it online as well, HERE.

50 years worth of coal ash is in this water in Alabama.

The Greene County Power Plant Control Room

     I traveled to Greene County Alabama where an Alabama Power plant in Dempolis is being converted from coal to gas, partly because of the impending coal ash regulations.  

Coal ash is loaded onto rail cars in Tennessee.

     And I was the first reporter to get inside the huge Arrowhead Landfill in Perry County Alabama, where The TVA disposed of millions of tons of coal ash from a huge 2008 spill at their plant in Kingston Tennessee. Thousands of rail cars carried the coal ash from Tennessee to Alabama's Black Belt* for disposal.

Watch for the EPA's announcement this week...they agreed to the deadline as part of a settlement of a lawsuit by environmental groups who said the agency was dragging its heels on the issue.